We all know that Moreland has been playing well and the desire to get him more playing time certainly factored into the decision to designate Hanley Ramirez for assignment on May 25th. What is shocking is just how good Moreland has been when you look at his numbers. Moreland is leading all American League first basemen with a .313 True Average while slashing .292/.355/.606. If you’re curious, that .606 slugging percentage is the best in the entire league among first basemen. Moreland has done this while being an above average defender at the position, placing him second in the AL in WARP at 0.83.

The only player ahead of Moreland in WARP is Jose Abreu, who is in the midst of another typical Abreu-like season with a WARP of 0.86. Since Ramirez was just recently designated for assignment, and received ample playing time before said transaction, Moreland had only appeared in 43 games this year, while Abreu has played in 54. Despite playing fewer games, they both have nine home runs on the season, and Abreu has just three more RBI, with 31. Moreland has been more effective on a game-by-game basis, has played better defense, and his .403 wOBA is clearly ahead of Abreu’s mark of .373. With Miguel Cabrera and Justin Smoak having down years, and Edwin Encarnacion only playing seven games at first base, the vote will surely come down to these two.

Like it or not, the fans have the vote in the All-Star game, and the Red Sox, by holding the best record in baseball, have drawn far more attention than the second-to-worst record amassed by the White Sox. It’s a little harsh to say, but few fans care about the White Sox right now. Abreu is wasted on that team, and likely won’t get the support he deserves when it comes to the voting. Should Abreu be traded to a contending team before the All-Star break, this could change, however, as popularity and success matter.

If Moreland does make the team it will be deserved, but it doesn’t mean he is anything close to the best first baseman in baseball. The National League side features Freedie Freeman, Joey Votto, Paul Goldschmidt, Anthony Rizzo, Brandon Belt, Eric Hosmer, and Cody Bellinger, just to name a few. There are going to be some very deserving first basemen that don’t even make that roster as a reserve. By TAv, Moreland is behind Belt, Freeman, and Jesus Aguilar, and ahead of Goldy, Rizzo, Votto, and the rest. If he makes the team as a starter, this will not be a Brock Holt: 2015 All-Star situation.

The Statcast numbers back up what Moreland has been achieving this year, and show some real meaningful change. His average exit velocity is 93.6 mph, which is far and away better than his previous best of 91.4 mph in 2015, and up significantly from 89.1 mph last year. Moreland is making harder contact more frequently than ever before, posting a 53.3 percent hard-hit rate and a career-best barrels percentage at 13.3. Much of this has come from Moreland pulling the ball more than ever, at 49.5 percent of the time — up from 37.2 percent last season. Can he keep this up? Who knows? What we do know is that Moreland is swinging at more pitches in the zone than ever before at 72.5 percent, and is doing damage on those pitches.

His two-year, 13-million-dollar deal is looking more and more like a bargain, and an excellent investment on the part of Dave Dombrowski. This contract is a welcome departure from Pablo Sandoval, Ramirez, and Rusney Castillo, and for a deal that was largely panned coming into the season, Mitch Moreland has gone so far beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.

Header photo by Brian Fluharty — USA TODAY Sports

Pomeranz started the season on the disabled list, as he suffered a forearm flexor strain in mid-March. He returned on April 20th, after a couple sub-par rehab outings in Triple-A, to pitch against the Oakland Athletics. It wasn’t a glorious return — Pomeranz lasted 3.2 innings, allowed three runs, and didn’t look like he had much of his command or his normal velocity. Since then, he’s been… well, the best description of his 2018 season is a dejected shrug. He’s been fairly unremarkable ever since, and at times his starts have been the visual equivalent of someone dragging their nails across a chalkboard. It should come as no surprise that his next start, which would’ve been today, was pushed back to Saturday against the Atlanta Braves.

Last year, I wrote about how Drew Pomeranz is an underrated pitcher, and how he was much better than people perceived him to be. He turned in a solid 2.6 WARP in 2017, and was more or less a constant in a rotation that had Chris Sale, the bad version of Rick Porcello, and the occasional good start from Doug Fister. In 2018, he’s been anything but, the far-and-away worst starter currently in the rotation, and looking solely at results thus far, the worst starter the Red Sox have, period.

You’d expect some rust coming back from a forearm injury, sure, but he’s had six starts in the majors so far, and he’s looked like a mess. The velocity loss is the most notable sign, as it’s nowhere close to where it was last year.

Apart from the changeup, which isn’t one of his main pitches, everything’s a good two to three mph slower than his norms. It’s more than a bit concerning, especially for a guy with Pomeranz’s injury record.

But he keeps on pitching, sharply diminished velocity and all, and both he and the Red Sox insist he’s health. If you’re a devout pessimist like me, this looks like a perfect, eminently frustrating storm combining a potentially scary injury and deep-seated distrust of the Red Sox medical staff, who have had a near-annual debacle concerning an injured player and their ability to play. While a forearm issue isn’t as scary as something like a shoulder, it could be a prelude to something like a UCL injury in his elbow. Thankfully, it wasn’t, but that doesn’t solve the mystery of the missing velocity or his mediocre production.

Again, both parties say he’s fit as a fiddle. But it does put the Red Sox in a little bit of a bind. As he is now, Pomeranz is a serviceable number four in any rotation, but that’s not how Pomeranz had been pitching the last two seasons, and it’s not like he’s at the far right side of the aging curve — he’s just 29 years old.  They can’t conceivably take him out of the rotation either, since that means giving either Hector Velazquez or Brian Johnson starts, and even with the success they’ve had coming out of the bullpen (and starting this year), having them start for an extended amount of time is asking for trouble. I’m not talking 2011 bad, where the Red Sox ran out guys like Kyle Weiland and an awful, definitely-injured John Lackey down the stretch, but bad enough where you’d actually want this version of Drew Pomeranz to stay. A Pomeranz that resembles anything like last season’s iteration makes this rotation fearsome. The current version downgrades the rotation to simply spooky. Still really good, but not great.

Fortunately, there might be light at the end of the tunnel. Pomeranz told Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald that he might’ve found and potentially fixed what had been the cause of his awfulness. This isn’t the first time he’s had a dramatic uptick in production after a mechanical change — in mid-May of last year, he mentioned everything finally starting to click after a start that month, and went on to be the second-best starter in that rotation. It’s not totally out of the realm of possibility that everything changes on Saturday, but, against my better judgement, it does get my hopes up.

There’s nothing that can be done until we see how he does on Saturday. If he’s good, all of this is just water under the bridge. If not, and he’s seemingly corrected that mechanical problem, the concern will start to grow. Pomeranz says he’s healthy, and the Red Sox have given him the green light to pitch. So until anything changes — for better or worse — we’ve just got to wait and see, and hope Pomeranz is better than this.

Header photo by Bob DeChiara — USA TODAY Sports

Through no fault of his own, Sale took another no decision against the Royals on Tuesday night. It’s sort of his thing. Sale’s been excellent this year, and yet because he hasn’t been quite what he was last season, there’s already this weird sense of impatience building on Sale Day. So is there actually anything going on? To the charts!

One of the most noticeable changes in Sale’s season has been the velocity. Look at where his fastball is pacing currently, compared to seasons past:

That’s a little alarming, only because his fastball is currently as slow as it’s been in four years. Only once — in 2014 — has he averaged a fastball under 92 miles per hour. The good news is that it hasn’t affected his results too much yet:

Taking a look at how hitters are making contact against him, it’s clear that Sale is still pitching at a pretty elite level. He’s getting more pop-ups and ground balls while cutting back, ever so slightly, on fly balls and line drives. The amount of solid contact against him is actually down from six percent to two percent (and yet the percent of times hitters are barreling up against him is going up? Baseball actually doesn’t make any sense). His stuff still looks pretty good, too:

The one thing to keep an eye on here is the drop in zone percentage. Throwing strikes five percent less often isn’t insignificant, and that coupled with a dip in velocity is a talk radio crisis waiting to happen. An explanation? Sale is leaning more heavily on his changeup early in the season, at the cost of his slider:

After finishing 2017 throwing his slider 33 percent of the time and his change 19 percent of the time, he’s now throwing those pitches 24 percent of the time and 23 percent of the time, respectively. Basically, after throwing two sliders for every one changeup last season, he’s throwing them at an equal clip this year. That’s something to watch going forward, primarily because Sale’s slider is a significantly better pitch than his changeup. Sale’s ran close to a 50 percent strikeout rate on sliders last season. Changeups? Only 14 percent. With some context, the curious pitch selection makes more sense:

Alex Cora said yesterday Chris Sale’s been working on his mechanics and that his slider hasn’t been what he wants it to be yet. So, even putting velocity aside, you haven’t been crazy to think Sale’s been a tick off from his uber elite self

— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) May 1, 2018

He’s still getting his normal amount of both in-zone swings and out-of-zone chases, though. His general swing percentage is holding steady, and his whiff rate has actually gone up a tick. For the real nerds among you, his spin rate looks pretty normal, too:

It’s hard to tell, but those little dots on the far right — his current spin rates — match up pretty closely to where he was pacing last year. That’s a good sign, especially as the weather starts to heat up, allowing pitchers to grip the ball more comfortably.

I’m not going to spend brain power worrying about Sale. Someone will, but it won’t be me, and it shouldn’t be you.

Header photo by Bob DeChiara — USA TODAY Sports

The 2018 Red Sox have already had their fair share. I tried to do my best to nail down the ones that have been the most vital to their hot start, and the most surprising.

Rick Porcello keeping the ball in the yard

Porcello gave up a league-high 38 home runs in 2017, resulting in a ghastly 1.7 dingers per nine innings. It was a career high, and one of the driving factors behind his 4.65 ERA.

This season has been the opposite. No, like the total opposite. He hasn’t even given up a single home run yet in 25.2 innings pitched.

And he’s had plenty of chances. He’s faced the New York Yankees, a squad which boasts the vaunted Giancarlo Stanton-Aaron Judge-Gary Sanchez power trio. He held them to a pair of hits over seven scoreless innings. Then came the Angels, who lead the American League with 26 dingers.

He and Chris Sale have combined to create the league’s most dominant one-two punch thus far. As I wrote last week, Porcello’s success is the team’s X-factor. Him laying off the home run balls and piling on the strikeouts certainly helps.

Mitch Moreland thriving in limbo

When the Red Sox added J.D. Martinez, everything improved… aside from Mitch Moreland’s clarity towards his role for 2018 and beyond.

Mitch Moreland was more than serviceable as the team’s starting first baseman last season. With Martinez in the fold, a bit of a logjam has been created at the position. Martinez moved Hanley Ramirez mostly back to first, as he has rotated between designated hitter and outfield.

That leaves Moreland, who’s been in proverbial limbo, bouncing from the bench to the starting nine, and from first base to designated hitter.

If you want to put it into basketball terms, he’s the sixth-man. A late game defensive substitution at first. A starter when Martinez is in the outfield and Ramirez is DH’ing. He’s all over the place, and he’s been killing it.

He’s hitting .343 in his new role, with an OPS of 0.986. Against the Angels on Wednesday, he went 3-for-4 with a home run, a walk and three RBI.

If this Boston team has real World Series aspirations, depth will be key. If Mitch Moreland can keep contributing like he has (although hitting .355 for the rest of the season might be a tad lofty) the depth will be alright.

The team’s 5-1 record against New York and Los Angeles

Was anyone exactly surprised when the Red Sox opened the season 8-1 against the rebuilding Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins? Not exactly. Anything less might have been a disappointment.

But to follow that up with a 5-1 record against one team expected to win its division by many pundits (New York) and another team leading the AL West (Los Angeles) all while mixing in a sweep of the Orioles? That’s a real resume booster.

The Sox have done it in a number of ways. With pitching, with hitting. In blowouts and it close wins. This, more than anything, is optimistic to see as we begin to reach the point of the season where its decided whether teams are “for real” or not.

Header photo by Richard Mackson — USA TODAY Sports

Yep, it’s out there now. So when he allows five runs in three innings in his next start, you know who to come blame — me. But for a minute, let’s just imagine a world where Porcello maintains the pace he’s at now and doesn’t turn into a pumpkin.

This Red Sox rotation will be incredibly dangerous.

On paper, that’s no surprise. But we know that things don’t always happen as they do on paper. This staff features a pair of former Cy Young award winners (and Chris Sale, who is still the best of the trio).

Sale is a model of consistency. His career ERA is 2.96, and in his “worst” season, he had a 3.41 ERA. He, out of anybody on the roster, is probably the safest pick to repeat their 2017 performance.

Price is trending up (or at least he was prior to leaving Wednesday’s start with an arm injury.) His 3.38 ERA 2017 season in which he struck out 76 in 74.2 innings has transitioned nicely into a promising 2018. Injuries might be the wild card with Price, but he has the history of being elite on his side and in his favor.

And then, there’s Porcello.

He’s been practically unhittable and he’s shown some of the best control of his career. He hasn’t allowed a ball to leave the yard yet, and his ERA and FIP are objectively beautiful.

He’s had a fascinating last few years, really. After coming to Boston, he’s sandwiched a Cy Young-winning season in between a pair of high-4 ERA years. If you believe in patterns, he’s due for another strong season.

If you choose to buy into numbers as opposed to semi-arbitrary patterns, he has those working for him, too. He’s been practically unhittable (14 hits allowed in 19.2 innings) and he’s shown some of the best control of his career (17 strikeouts to a single walk). He hasn’t allowed a ball to leave the yard yet, and his ERA (1.83) and FIP (1.61) are objectively beautiful. He’s throwing lots of sliders and changeups, about as much as he had for the entirety of his career. He just shut down a struggling, albeit dangerous Yankees lineup.

Of course, it’s early. As far as I’m concerned, it’s still going to be “early” until about May. But Porcello is currently passing the eye test.

So where does that leave the Red Sox? It leaves them with at least a dominant three-headed dragon of a rotation. The back end still has some question marks, headlined by roughly 17 pitchers who could fill the back two spots (maybe not that many, but it sure feels like it).

There’s still plenty of time for Porcello to look like his 2017 self as opposed to his 2016 self. But he might be the X-factor in this team, the one that decides if Boston will boast a good rotation, or a deadly one.

Header photo by Brian Fluharty — USA TODAY Sports

So, because we have an innate desire to be right, especially about baseball, we’ve put together our predictions on how the season will go. Some will be right on the money, while others will look wildly outlandish by the time November rolls back around. But that’s okay! That’s what makes this fun, and when it’s all said and done, we’ll all have those moments where we won’t get something, just like Mookie Betts:

Double hit over Mookie Betts’ head while he is being interviewed by ESPN — “I ain’t getting this one, boys” — ESPN booth cracks up. pic.twitter.com/SXLhuaUfP9

— Cork Gaines (@CorkGaines) March 27, 2018

 It’ll never get old. So before we all do, here’s BP Boston’s predictions.

American League

National League

Postseason

Major Awards

Photo by Steve Mitchell — USA TODAY Sports

Yesterday David Price threw four shutout innings against mostly Blue Jays backups. He struck out five, walked one, and gave up one single. Good as they are, those results tell us little about how well David Price pitched yesterday or will pitch this season. They do show us that David Price is healthy right now. That’s about the best you can ever say of any pitcher in spring training, but it’s downright vital for the 2018 Red Sox as well as future iterations of the Olde Town Team. Hooray!

The astute reader will note that health represents a marked difference from last season, when Price was unable to throw a pitch during Spring Training and wasn’t able to take the mound in anger for Boston until the very end of May. That is yet another in a line of data points pointing towards the fact that Price’s time with Boston hasn’t been what was hoped when he put pen to paper following a Cy Young-caliber 2015 season split between Detroit and Toronto. Price’s 2016 season, his first in Boston, featured a quantity of innings but perhaps not quite the quality that had been hoped within those innings. Then came 2017 when Price was beset by injuries. The team won 93 games and the division anyway, despite getting just 74.2 innings from Price (with 8.2 of those coming out of the bullpen).

A good thing about Price’s 2017 was that his velocity bumped up to 2015 levels after a step downwards in 2016. Price beats you with stuff and location, so it’s not a huge deal if he’s throwing 92 instead of 95, but obviously 95 gives him a bit more room for error. Yesterday in his first action of 2018, Price was in the low 90s with his fastball but still managed eight swinging strikes in just 55 pitches. Velocity isn’t a concern at this point, just health though, sure, getting outs is better than getting knocked around. That he was on the mound and throwing the ball over the plate is the main thing though.

It’s the main thing because this year’s Red Sox, as impressive as the offense looks to be, is going to rely heavily on starting pitching. Chris Sale sits at the head of the table when it comes to the Sox rotation, but Price isn’t far away. With Drew Pomeranz and Eduardo Rodriguez, the Sox rotation has some upside as well, but both those guys aren’t known as the most durable. So a healthy Price will go a long way towards giving the Sox a step up on the Yankees if the rest of the rotation is doing their job, or just keeping them in the Wild Card hunt if not. If Price and Sale are healthy and give the Sox 400 innings, I don’t see how this team doesn’t make the playoffs.

Which brings us to: the playoffs! We’ve seen just about every type of pitching staff have success in October over the past five seasons. The Royals did it with a strong bullpen and little starting talent. The Indians did it with starting depth and a deftly deployed and hellacious back of the bullpen. The Cubs won with a more standardized pitching rotation and bullpen setup. The point seems to be less how you deploy your talent and more that you have the talent to deploy (and that the talent plays well in the moment). Right now the Red Sox have the talent, with Sale, Price, Pomeranz, and Kimbrel in the ‘pen.

The thing about the way baseball structures its playoffs is that it allows teams to deploy their best players a lot, more so than during the regular season. This is especially so for the pitching staff. Sale and Price can pitch almost every game of a five game series. They can throw more than half the games in a seven game series. That’s an advantage over almost every team in baseball.

Since the moment Price signed his seven-year contract with Boston, it seemed clear that he was going to leave after three seasons. The deal gives him an opt-out after this season, allowing him back on the free agent market at age-32 for yet another massive payday. Price’s opting out would get the Red Sox out from under the remaining four years and $127 million of his deal. The only thing that might stop Price from opting out would be a catastrophic injury of some sort. Beyond that, he’s gone.

Except no, because then came the 2017-2018 baseball off-season. Suppose Price pitches well this season, five wins or so, his best since 2015 in Detroit/Toronto. Is any team going to offer him $127 million? Yu Darvish got $127 million from the Cubs, but he was a year younger than Price, and he’ll have to play two more seasons to get it. Forget the $127 million, Jake Arrieta didn’t even get four years from the Phillies. Teams aren’t giving $30 million per season to pitchers in their early 30s anymore.

Things change of course, and maybe next off-season will be different and teams will open up their vaults for 32 year old pitchers again. But, if you were David Price, would you be willing to turn down the kind of money he has guaranteed to him in order to take that chance?

Unless something changes David Price is going to remain with the Red Sox through his contract. The thing is, that might not be such an awful thing. The money will be bad, but if the Sox get a good pitcher out of it, then they can deal with a bit of an overpay. The question for the Red Sox, at least right now is whether or not Price is healthy. Yesterday he was, and that’s all you can ask of a beautiful spring day.

Photo by Jasen Vinlove — USA TODAY Sports

Presenting the full list 2017 Roster Recaps, listed with the authors that wrote them. An asterisk denotes a player who has, as of March 13th, dearly departed the Red Sox. We’ll miss them all terribly.

Catchers

• Sandy Leon (Cam Ellis)
• Blake Swihart (Jake Devereaux)
• Christian Vazquez (Brett Cowett)

Infielders

• Xander Bogaerts (Chris Teeter)
• Chase d’Arnaud* (Matt Kory)
• Rafael Devers (Kory)
• Marco Hernandez (Cowett)
• Brock Holt (Devereaux)
• Tzu-Wei Lin (Cowett)
• Deven Marrero (Cowett)
• Mitch Moreland (Cowett)
• Eduardo Nunez (Teeter)
• Dustin Pedroia (Kory)
• Hanley Ramirez (Devereaux)
• Josh Rutledge* (Cowett)
• Pablo Sandoval* (Cowett)
• Sam Travis (Teeter)

Outfielders

• Andrew Benintendi (Ellis)
• Mookie Betts (Kory)
• Jackie Bradley Jr. (Cowett)
• Rajai Davis* (Daniel Poarch)
• Steve Selsky (Ellis)
• Chris Young* (Cowett)

Pitchers

• Fernando Abad* (Ellis)
• Matt Barnes (Cowett)
• Blaine Boyer* (Cowett)
• Roenis Elias (Poarch)
• Doug Fister* (Kory)
• Heath Hembree (Kory)
• Brian Johnson (Teeter)
• Joe Kelly (Ellis)
• Kyle Kendrick* (Poarch)
• Craig Kimbrel (Cowett)
• Austin Maddox (Ellis)
• Kyle Martin (Poarch)
• Drew Pomeranz (Ellis)
• Rick Porcello (Teeter)
• David Price (Ellis)
• Noe Ramirez* (Poarch)
• Addison Reed* (Ellis)
• Eduardo Rodriguez (Cowett)
• Robbie Ross* (Cowett)
• Chris Sale (Cowett)
• Robby Scott (Cowett)
• Carson Smith (Teeter)
• Ben Taylor (Cowett)
• Hector Velazquez (Devereaux)
• Brandon Workman (Ellis)
• Steven Wright (Kory)

Header photo by Winslow Townson — USA TODAY Sports

LEAST STUPID/ONES I’M ACTUALLY KINDA INTO 

Blake Swihart is going to make the 25-man roster. 

Admittedly, it hasn’t gotten to this quite yet. BUT IT SHOULD. Swihart is doing really well in early March, which is absolutely always an indicate of how well he’ll perform over the next eight months. Still – it’s fun to see Swihart put together a run of good baseball, no matter what the calendar says. As it stands, there’s not a whole lot of power coming off the Red Sox bench (unless you think Hanley Ramirez is coming off the bench, which I think would be news to him). I think there’s a real case to be made for Swihart getting turned into a version of Brock Holt with power, and I’d be supremely here for it. He’s out of options, so something’s gotta give. I’d never put it above Dave Dombrowski to trade prospects, but Swihart playing a notable role for this team this year would be a delight.

The clubhouse is more relaxed. 

This is by no means an indictment of John Farrell. Farrell managed the team to a World Series title; he had his limitations, but teams can do much worse than John Farrell. But from a personality fit, Farrell was always better suited for 2013’s roster. As the Jon Lesters and the Jake Peavys and Shane Victorinos gave way to the Mookies, Xanders, and Andrew Benintendis, it became increasingly clear that it was no longer a great fit. Say what you want about his in-game decisions, but Farrell’s disconnect with the increasingly-young core lost him the job. Judging from the half-dozen reports about clubhouse culture this spring, players seem happier. Alex Cora brings in a reputation as a players’ manager, and it genuinely seems like people are enjoying themselves more. Maybe all these happy feelings go away when Spring Training gets old in like three days, but happy teams are fun teams.

PRETTY STUPID/ONES I GUESS I GET BUT EH, I DON’T KNOW

David Price is corrupting the younger players. 

I want to state on the record that I think this falls much farther under the first half of this category than the second. Price and his beef with the local media is well-documented, and both sides deserve their share of blame. Since I am not in the clubhouse after every game and do not live in Boston and do not actually cover the Red Sox, I obviously also don’t know what goes on in there. But Price is, by all accounts, a fantastic leader. Every team he’s been on has gone above and beyond to make that known. The Red Sox have always had a leader, the beat just didn’t like him. It goes without saying that it’s not appropriate to ambush a reporter or team employee on a plane, but do we really think Price is telling the other players to do that? Is Price really letting Rafael Devers know that the best way to deal with the local media is to stage elaborate, season-long beefs with people who write about you every single day? Price is an immensely talented pitcher and noted leader, so he can tell the younger players whatever they want for all I care.

The clock’s ticking for Xander Bogaerts.

I get it, I really do. I wanted Bogaerts to hit 30 home runs too. Nothing makes you delirious like a power-hitting shortstop prospect. Fans have spent his entire career getting angry that his standup doubles weren’t home runs. He was hurt for most of last season and “only” hit .273/.343/.403. You don’t have to look too far up the lineup to see an example of someone else whose power developed later in their careers, so it’s worth holding out hope. But in the meantime, let’s not sit around getting angry that Bogaerts is only pretty good.

EXTREMELY STUPID/SO STUPID THEY DON’T WARRANT A 2ND TITLE

The Red Sox are boring this year.

Chris Sale, David Price, Mookie Betts, Craig Kimbrel, J.D. Martinez, Xander Bogaerts, and Rafael Devers all play for the Red Sox. Andrew Benintendi does too. Their lineup is just one of the best power hitters in baseball surrounded by a bunch of young players who were top prospects. Their rotation has two Cy Young winners and Chris Sale. One of the three best closers in baseball pitches for them and his silly posture theatrics are generally fun. They’re going to play in 300 nationally televised, heavily-produced games against the ’27 Yankees incarnate this year. If these Red Sox are boring, I suggest inserting adrenaline directly into your heart.

Photo by Kim Klement — USA TODAY Sports

I’m going by the rotations as listed on Roster Resource, which of course may change during spring training. As for the order, I’ve organized them by their WARP projections.

Rotations

Red Sox:

1. Chris Sale (6.1)
2. David Price (2.1)
3. Drew Pomeranz (2.1)
4. Rick Porcello (1.2)
5. Eduardo Rodriguez (1.2)

(12.7 total WARP)

versus

Yankees:

1. Luis Severino (4.1)
2. Sonny Gray (2.5)
3. Masahiro Tanaka (2.4)
4. Jordan Montgomery (1.0)
5. CC Sabathia (0.6)

(10.6 total WARP)

Not unlike the two team’s lineups, their rotations aren’t too far apart in overall talent. Perhaps the Red Sox enjoy a bit more at the top of the rotation, whereas the Yankees have more overall depth. But the end result is roughly the same, as you can see from their respective WARP totals.

Is Luis Severino as good as Chris Sale? No, probably not, but he’s not wholly far off. Sale is the best player of either group and the one who the Red Sox hope can put them over the top, both during the regular season and in the playoffs. Severino has the potential to be that guy for the Yankees. Still, the advantage is with Sale.

The thing about PECOTA and really all projection systems is its innate pessimism. It’s not really even pessimism though because players get hurt all the time and age gets everyone at some point and then there’s the guys who just have bad seasons because of who knows what. That all said, it’s not difficult to expect more than PECOTA projects from a few guys on each team, and not coincidentally the two I’d expect more from are the same guys I’d point to when discussing the most pivotal pitchers of the rotation. That would be Price for the Red Sox and Gray for the Yankees. Both have been top pitchers before, as recently as 2016. In Gray’s four seasons he’s been above 4 WARP in three of them including last season, so his 2.5 projection seems a tad short. But there it is just the same.

Price likely has a similar issue to Gray, namely injuries. Price spent a significant number of days on the DL last season, the first time he did that in his career. The result was a one-win season after averaging six wins per over the three seasons before that. Still, the Red Sox are depending on Price this season in a way that I’m not sure fans have fully grasped. If Price gives the team 75 innings of 4.50 run ball and then exits stage left, the Red Sox are going to need a lot of quality innings from Steven Wright and/or Brian Johnson. To paraphrase the words of a former Yankee manager, that’s not what you want.

But if Price is healthy, he’s Boston’s second ace, and he changes the completion of the team completely. The same thing could be said for Gray, whose reputation took a hit during an injured and ineffective 2016 season. Peak Gray probably isn’t the equal of peak Price, though it seems that Gray reaching his previous heights is the more likely possibility of the two (though as of this writing both claim to be fully healthy).

Past the top two guys, the Yankees need Tanaka’s arm to remain attached to his shoulder, possibly a difficult ask considering his previous medical history. If he’s healthy though, a caveat that should probably be applied to all pitchers, Tanaka offers what any team would look for in a third starter: namely quality and dependability. The Red Sox are more on the first of those attributes and less on the second with their third starters (yes, two) in Pomeranz and Porcello. Porcello can’t be as bad as he was last season (can he?), but he’s probably not going to win another Cy Young either. As such, sure, two wins seems perfectly adequate, even if you maybe would hope for more given his $20 million salary. Pomeranz is hitting his stride as a starter after a late start to his career, but he’s always been on the fragile side. Together they’re probably in the five-win range, which is what the Yankees will likely get out of the combination of Gray and Tanaka.

The back end of the Yankees rotation is C.C. Sabathia and Jordan Montgomery, both of who had stronger seasons in 2017 than you’d have guessed given their respective ages and, in Sabathia’s case, everything else about him. And yet here he is again. Note that PECOTA is as unimpressed with him as you are. The Red Sox back end features the aforementioned Wright and Johnson unless, and this is the key, Eduardo Rodriguez gets healthy. Say what you will about Montgomery, but the Yankees don’t have a pitcher of Rodriguez’s quality in the back half of their rotation. If Rodriguez comes back healthy with no knee troubles, he gives the Sox rotation depth few teams can match.

If there is one place where New York has a step on Boston, it’s in previous injuries. Why are they important? A wise person once said the greatest predictor of future pitcher injuries is past pitcher injuries. With that as a background, the Red Sox are at greater risk with Price, Rodriguez, and deeper down, Wright and Johnson all having missed significant time in recent seasons. Only Gray fits that description with the Yankees (though Sabathia has pitched through injuries, he’s not particularly injury prone).

Bullpens

Predicting what will happen with bullpens is the greatest of impossibilities, like jumping across the country using only trampolines, or drinking an entire bottle of Gatorade without your tongue jumping from your mouth and running screaming down the street. The Red Sox have one of the two or three best relievers in baseball in Craig Kimbrel. That’s a good start. After that, they could have a very deep pen with Carson Smith and Tyler Thornburg splitting eighth inning duties and Matt Barnes and Joe Kelly covering the sixth and seventh. Or all those guys could spontaneously explode like Spinal Tap drummers.

Like the rotations, the Red Sox have that one top guy, but the Yankees have quality and more depth in their pen. And yet, Aroldis Chapman wasn’t so hot last season, and Dellin Betances wasn’t either. Both were fine overall, and very good at times, but showed real moments of shakiness. Tommy Kahnle was less than spectacular after putting up an amazing first half in Chicago, and David Robertson was good, but not amazing either. Still, those guys have track records of (mostly) excellence, so few are likely to flame out. It could easily turn into the Craig Kimbrel And That’s It Show in Boston, whereas the Yankees have too much depth and not enough Craig Kimbrel for that to occur to them.

Where things stand now, the Red Sox have a slight advantage in the rotation, but when you factor in the bullpens, that lead dwindles. Like their offenses, and like the teams of 2003 and 2004, picking which one is truly better is likely a fool’s errand (thus these articles). We never know what will happen over the course of a baseball season, but often times we kinda know, right? Here I legitimately have no idea. Except to say this: even after 162 games it’ll probably be quite close.

Also, the Houston Astros are better than both teams.

Photo by Noah K. Murray — USA TODAY Sports